Major Ivan Straker

Major Ivan Straker, who has died aged 84, played a key role in saving the
Grand National from extinction in the mid-1980s.

The race had seen a gradual decline in popularity since the end of the Second World War, and twice during the Sixties the event was advertised as “the last Grand National”; at one stage there was even a proposal to move its location from Aintree to Doncaster.

In 1973 Aintree racecourse was sold to the property developer Bill Davies, and the 1975 National (won by L’Escargot) attracted only 30,000 people after Davies had tripled the admission prices. Later that year the bookmakers Ladbrokes signed an agreement with Davies allowing them to manage the race, which they did for the next seven years. Davies then decided to sell Aintree, and in 1982 a Grand National Appeal was launched. With donations still falling short by the time the 1983 race came round, it was run under the auspices of the Jockey Club after Davies had agreed to an extension.

By this time Straker — a devoted follower of National Hunt racing — was UK chief executive of Seagram, the Canadian distillery group founded and controlled by the Bronfman dynasty, and after reading an article about the precarious future of the race by The Telegraph’s racing correspondent John Oaksey, he persuaded the company to fund a sponsorship deal; it would secure the future of the world’s most famous steeplechase for the next two decades. Straker later recalled: “I was reading John’s article, which I always did because I thought he was the best racing journalist I ever read.

“He wrote that it looked black [for the National], which was the understatement of the century because the appeal had failed to raise the necessary money . It would have been the biggest tragedy that had ever happened if it had been lost to us all, so I rang up my ultimate boss in New York, Edgar Bronfman, and said, 'Listen, you’ve always wanted to raise the profile of Seagram in the United Kingdom and here is the most wonderful, wonderful chance.’ I asked him if he would let me raise the three-quarters of a million pounds to bridge the gap between what the public appeal had brought in... and he said, 'Go ahead and do it’.”

The course was bought from Davies, to be run and managed by Jockey Club Racecourses (then known as Racecourse Holdings Trust). The last Grand National to be sponsored by the company was in 1991, when, appropriately, the winner was Seagram, a horse which Straker had twice had the opportunity to buy. A Seagram subsidiary, Martell Cognac, sponsored the race until 2004, Seagram’s drinks interests having by then passed into the ownership of Pernod-Ricard of France.

Related Articles

According to Straker, over the post-war years Aintree had become “the most depressing racecourse you could have visited... the prize money was pathetic, the facilities awful”. In 1984 he was inspecting a lavatory set aside for the use of the Princess Royal: “I looked in the loo in which she was to powder her nose and there was only half a wooden seat on it.” Seagram’s investment over the ensuing years helped to transform the facilities at the course, and by 2004 Aintree was attracting 150,000 for the three-day Grand National meeting.

Despite heroic efforts, Straker never won the race himself. In 1987 The Tsarevich, owned by Straker and trained by Nicky Henderson, finished second to Maori Venture; in the excitement, Straker collapsed from a heart attack. In 2002 — two years after taking the Scottish Grand National at Ayr — his horse Paris Pike fell at the first fence at Aintree.

Ivan Charles Straker was born on June 17 1928, the son of Arthur and Cicely Straker, and educated at Harrow before going on to Sandhurst. In 1948 he was commissioned in the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s Own), serving in Germany, Northern Ireland, the Middle East and in military intelligence at the War Office.

He left the Army in 1962 and two years later became managing director of D Rintoul & Co and of the Glenlivet and Glen Grant Agencies . In 1967 he was appointed a director of the Glenlivet and Glen Grant Distillers, and in 1971 chief executive of Glenlivet Distillers.

In 1978 Straker conducted a hard-fought negotiation with Edgar Bronfman for the Seagram takeover of Glenlivet at a rich price of £46 million. Seagram was Glenlivet’s agent in the US, and Bronfman was determined to thwart the ambitions of its Japanese rival Suntory, which had acquired a share stake in Glenlivet. The Glenlivet brand became the best-selling malt whisky in the US, while Glen Grant sold 300,000 cases a year in Italy. Straker was chief executive of Seagram’s UK interests (which also included Sandeman port) from 1983 to 1990 and chairman from 1984 to 1993.

Ivan Straker married first, in 1954 (dissolved 1971), Gillian Elizabeth Grant, with whom he had a daughter and two sons, one of whom predeceased him. He married secondly, in 1976 (dissolved 1986), Sally Jane Hastings, with whom he had a son. He married thirdly, in 1998, Rosemary Ann (“Tizzy”) Whitaker.